If You Love Rosé, You Need To Try Rosato

After declaring 22 bottles of rosé our favorites, strapping forties of pink wine to our hands, and making sorbet floats out of the stuff, we are still not sick of rosé. Never have been, never will be. That said, we're willing to let our wine cabinet expand its horizons — especially if that's by sharing shelf space with rosé's Italian cousin, rosato.

Marissa A. Ross, author of Wine. All the Time. (an actually approachable guide to wine) and Bon Appetit's resident wine expert, recently caught our attention when she declared rosato her new fave. Italians make it the exact same way the French make rosé — by exposing red grape skins to their juice for a short while — just with fruit that is exclusive to the boot-shaped country.

While it sounds similar, it tends to be a little richer, both in taste and color. According to Ross, rosato is still crisp like rosé, but it's not as cloying as the French stuff can sometimes be, making the type of wine a good match with roast chicken or pizza.

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The roots can be traced back to Puglia, in the heel of Italy's boot. One company there, Leone de Castris, claims to be the first to have bottled Italian rosato and bring it to the U.S. in 1943, after an American WWII general tasted it and requested more. They named the varietal Five Roses, and you can still get it in the states. But, if you happen to have a spare stack of Benjamins lying around, you could just consider flying to the birthplace.

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